Sunday, January 10, 2010

It can be tough to keep up with the book blogging community when you don’t live in the US or Canada. Publishers won’t send you books, most contests aren’t for you, and it can be next to impossible to find certain titles in your home country.

Over the past two years of book blogging, I’ve been very lucky about the amount of books I’ve received and I’ve passed a fair number of my books on to other bloggers in countries such as Vietnam, Pakistan, Scotland, Spain and of course Germany.

I would like to continue supporting international book bloggers and have decided to start the International Book Blogger Mentor Program. Any book blogger who blogs in English about books and lives outside the US and Canada can apply. Each month I will pick one blogger to send 2-3 of my most recent review copies to. Upon request, I will also look over the reviews you write for the books and suggest improvements. Once you post your first review, I will feature you and your blog on Presenting Lenore.

To apply:

You must have an active blog with at least 10 book reviews posted to date. Just write an e-mail to lenoreva at hotmail dot com with the subject line IBBMP 2010 telling me your future plans for your blog and why you’d like to be a part of the mentor program. You can also mention what new and forthcoming books are on the top of your wish list and I will try to match you up with at least one. If you are selected, I will write you an e-mail and give you a list of books to select from.

Hope to hear from you International Book Bloggers soon! And please spread the word.

This is AWESOME of you, Lenore. Thanks to The Book Depository and the generosity of blogging friends over the years I no longer have trouble acquiring books (and in fact have a towering tbr pile), but I've been there, and it's fantastic of you to do this for others.

What a brilliant idea! It's so wonderful and generous of you to be willing to help out those who live outside the UK and the US - I know how it feels living in the middle of nowhere! :( I'll send you an email later and I've already retweeted your tweet about this. :)

Wow this is a fantastic idea & very generous of you :o) I'm in the UK & have only recently started my blog so I haven't done enough reviews to participate yet but as soon as I have I'll send you an email!

Thank you so much for doing this. It's so generous! I created my blog about 2 weeks ago and haven't posted any review since, but I'm heading to write them and post them soon. It's just I'm not a fluent English speaker... I'm still studying the basic English, but I read many book in English, so I think I can handle everything. Again: Thank you for your generousity. The only way I have to buy books is by Amazon and an unique bookstore I have here in my city that sells books from US, but it takes almost two months to arrive, so... Thank you over and over again!

Though I would like to apply for the mentoring opportunity I cannot do so as I have not done the required reviews. However, I think its a wonderful opportunity. In Sri Lanka quality English books are available but at exhorbitant prices, the second hand book market is restricted to about 3 small shops in the capital city so reading even the reviews is extremely enjoyable to readers.

I dont think people who have had easy access to everything in their life including libraries and the vast amount of material available freely would ever begin to understand how much they take for granted!

I found your blog via the post on the Story Siren's blog. It seems very nice of you to do this!

I am only new to book blogging, and although I live in Australia, so I don't find it that hard to find books, I'd love some advice on getting my blog up and running better.Thank you very much for this oppertunity. I'll email you. :)

I was just going through my Google Reader(it's been a bit neglected in the past week because I had to concentrate on an exam) and I find this great post! This must be one of the best ideas in the book blogging community ever :) It would be great to have someone looking over my reviews.

What a good idea - can I return your generosity and offer you any UK review books I receive? Noah's Compass was out here first last year and my review is on my blog and up at The Literateur ezine. I'll email with further details.

I am in the U.S. and therefore do not need to do this, but I think it is an absolutely fantastic, thoughtful idea. I wish you great success with it, and you have inspired me to give a book to an overseas blogger in my next giveaway. :)

What a generous thing to do. We miss out on a lot of arcs by being in Canada but at least we have access to some. All my giveaways and Bookmooch send-outs have always been worldwide I'm happy to say - I know postage kills - so I use library books when I can to save money. I would be willing to send a package of 2 or 3 books overseas to an address you gave me if that helps. I could give you a list of which arcs I am willing to let go of. Let me know, my email is at the top of my blog. Let's hope this idea starts a trend.

This is so generous and brilliant! I heard about this program when Natasha of Maw Books Blog was interviewed on the podcast That's How I Blog.

This discovery was timely, as I'd just posted a bit of a whinge on The Story Siren's site about the rather discriminatory nature of ARCs & competitions in the book blogging world, where international bloggers are excluded largely, it would seem, because of high US postage costs.

So look out for my email in you intray. Thank you so much for doing this for the REST of the world.

This is a fantastic Idea. I don't know how many times I've gone to enter contests and what not, only to stop when it says US and Canada only. I'm from Australia and it can be frustrating. When I finally do my contests and giveaways I will make sure that most/if not all will be open internationally.

Thanks for such a brilliant idea. I just started my blog and still making changes here and there. But thankfully I've made my first post today. I found your link at The Story Siren. Again thank you so much for opening an opportunity to bloggers outside US.